Treating anomia in semantic dementia: Improvement, maintenance, or both?

Abstract

A treatment programme for AK, an anomic patient with semantic dementia is described. The programme was based on home practice and resulted in re-learning the names of some objects AK could not name and/or comprehend prior to the treatment. The effects of treatment were still present one month post-treatment for items that AK could not name but could comprehend prior to treatment. In addition to items that AK could not name, items that she could both understand and name were also included in the programme. This allowed us to evaluate the influence of practice on the retention of words that appeared to be intact at the outset of the investigation. Results indicated that practice delayed the progression of loss. In addition, the programme was designed jointly with AK who made many important decisions related to treatment.

Acknowledgments

Regina Jokel was supported by a doctoral Fellowship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. This research was supported in part by a University of Toronto Connaught Grant and Alzheimer Society of Canada Grant to Elizabeth Rochon, and the Saul A. Silverman Foundation, Toronto, Canada.

Notes

¹The authors thank Dr. Brian Levine, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, for sharing these data.

²Unfortunately, due to AK's busy schedule, we were unable to obtain repeated baseline measures three times before treatment.